


This Drying Ink

by dutchydoescoke



Series: boys next door and scandals [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Punk, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, M/M, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-19 20:32:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1482925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dutchydoescoke/pseuds/dutchydoescoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He tends to count the history of the band in tattoos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Drying Ink

**Author's Note:**

> okay so first: this entire thing is andrea's fault. literally. THIS ENTIRE UNIVERSE.
> 
> second: to head off questions: this fic features trans Stiles (he/him/his) and genderfluid Scott (they/them/theirs).
> 
> third: warnings for: implications of child abuse, non-explicit mentions of violence, ableism (a woman [quiet-hands](http://juststimming.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/quiet-hands/) kira when she stims), mentions of needles (it's tattoo!fic), and mentions of blood (see above)
> 
> fourth: there's more to this coming, like the plot of how the band starts and all that, but that's a whole 'nother fic.
> 
> fifth, and finally: title borrowed from david cook's "circadian" because i'm a predictable little shit.

He tends to count the history of the band in their tattoos.

When they get signed and they get an advance on the album, because god-fucking-bless Pete, Isaac gets his first, the flower on his forearm, obscuring a scar that Stiles has seen whenever Isaac stops worrying about them long enough to roll up his sleeves. There are vines to it that curl around his arms a little, covering the stray lines of the scar. Even years later, Stiles remembers the relief in Isaac’s eyes when he’d come back from the tattoo shop, plastic and masking tape wrapped around his arm.

(Sometimes, Stiles still feels the phantom throbbing of his knuckles from sucker-punching Lahey, in the alley they’d “come across” him in, Kira standing guard while Stiles hit, and Lydia proving that she knew how to handle the drumsticks that she used to whack him with. Stiles didn’t watch Kira’s turn, but the sick crack of breaking bone made it clear what she’d done to the arm Lahey had cradled after.)

Lydia gets the first few bars, her opening beat, of the first song they record wrapped around her wrist, and he watches Kira tap it out against her wrist sometimes.

(Stiles remembers later, their first meet and greet, how a woman had tried grabbing Kira’s hands to stop her from doing it and Kira jerking away. He remembers Kira’s almost defiant resumption of the tapping, with a look in her eyes like she was daring the woman to say something again.)

Kira starts with a comic book sound effect on her arm and the bass line for their first song on her chest, under her collarbone, and wears low-cut t-shirts to show them off.

(Stiles gleefully remembers the first time a dude had tried to be a comic book snob around Kira, after the America Chavez tattoo joined the partial sleeve she’d started working on, how he’d been a snotty shit about how she only cared about Young Avengers and wasn’t a real fan. Stiles had just offered to hold the bag with her bass strings and watched as Kira had scrunched her nose up in annoyance before demolishing the guy for passing judgement on her comics taste when he didn’t even know her or the full extent of her interest in comic books. Stiles would’ve offered to help but Kira had been fantastic on her own, completely dismantling the guy’s arguments on why he should get to pass judgement on her.)

Scott’s first tattoo after their rings is in the early days, before Isaac’s, even, when they and Stiles are cramming into the back of the van they use before Pete signs them, they get a jedi tattoo, just above their heart.

(It’s because they watched Star Wars at 2 AM one night on Stiles’ laptop, in the back of the van and sharing a pair of earbuds while Lydia drove, volume and screen brightness turned down to not disturb Isaac or Kira, asleep in the middle row with their heads resting together. Scott had fallen asleep on Stiles’ shoulder halfway through Return Of The Jedi and Stiles had fallen asleep on Scott’s shoulder by the time the credits rolled. Two days later, in a shitty back-alley tattoo parlor, the kind that only accepted cash and weren’t the cleanest, but were cheap enough for them, they got the tattoo.)

There’s others, too: Isaac gets a half-sleeve of flowers on his other arm, technicolor and bright enough to obscure anything else; Kira’s sound effect morphs into a partial sleeve, and, slowly, a full one, and begins creeping onto her other arm; whatever Lydia gets, it’s somewhere Stiles doesn’t see; Scott gets more flowers, a dahlia on their shoulder, a Star of Bethlehem on their lower back, the flowers Stiles bought as a ‘thank you for not laughing at me when I started this band’ gift after their first show, a skull on their shoulder blade, palm leaves curling around their hip.

Stiles’s own tattoos are a storyboard of his friendship with Scott.

He gets a matching jedi tattoo, his on his wrist, and he lets Scott run their fingers over it once it heals, whenever they want, or whenever they need.

He gets the names of the ones he considers family on his chest, over his almost-faded scars. His father and mother are there, as are Melissa and Scott. Later, after the band works out, he adds Kira and Lydia and Isaac, because it seems wrong not to.

He gets a smear of bright green inked into the back of his hand after he helps Scott dye their hair for the first time, remembering Scott with their nose scrunched up at the smell of the bleach, which had gone on blue and grainy but worked like a charm. The green’s joined by pink, blue, purple, bright red, and eventually a darker green as Scott’s hair changes.

(Stiles tries not to think too deeply on the reason why he so desperately wants to _match_ Scott as best he can. Late at night, when they’re still crammed into a van and Scott’s asleep with their head on Stiles’ lap, Stiles’ fingers are still carding through Scott’s hair, the neon green on the back of his hand, on the space between the metacarpals of his thumb and forefinger, blending in with Scott’s hair. It makes him feel a little better that no matter how much things change for them, he’s got Scott with him.)

After the album drops and Stiles’ ensuing panic attack, which ended with Scott singing “Summertime” to him, he gets it first, on the inside of his wrist.

 _Run away with me_.

Scott sees it when Stiles takes the plastic off and helps him cleans it up, because he still bleeds, every damn time. When Scott comes back from a store run the next day, two hours late, and plastic wrapped around their own wrist, Stiles finds what the new ink is as he helps them swap the plastic out.

 _Anytime you want_.

He looks back up at Scott’s face and grins, he can’t help it, and finishes taping the new plastic in place before he leans up and kisses Scott. His hands end up in Scott’s flophawk, hair falling over the tattoo on his hand, and Scott’s hands end up on his wrists, thumbs trailing over the ink there.

Scott hums, just enough of a song for Stiles to break the kiss and grin again.

“Anytime you want.”


End file.
